Hindsight Sucks
by Sunshine and Chocolate
Summary: They say that hindsight is twenty twenty. Derek disagrees. It isn't twenty twenty, it just plain sucks.


Hindsight Sucks

Rating: PG

Pairing: None

Spoilers: None but it was written post S2

Summary: They say that hindsight is twenty-twenty. Derek disagrees. It is not twenty-twenty, it just plain sucks.

Author's Note: This was written before season three even aired so it doesn't have any spoilers.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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There are a few things that Derek Shepherd knows about his life.

One, he is a brilliant, competent surgeon.

Two, he likes to fish.

And three, he absolutely hates to be called McDreamy.

Everything else in his life, however, he is not so sure of. Nothing he had done recently made any sense to him now.

When he had first arrived in Seattle, he had been running. He was running from anything and everything that would remind him of his former life. Anything that would remind him of the wife who let herself be touched and kissed, in ways only he was supposed to be allowed to, by a man he trusted unconditionally. Derek had been running and he ran right into Meredith.

She really had been his breath of fresh air. That was the truth. She was young, exciting, a little naïve, and most importantly, she had not known anything about him. He had really liked that. He had been really attracted to the part of him she brought out.

They dated, laughed, drank, and had sex. They basically had fun. It was like he was in his twenties again. Not a dull point in their relationship. That is until, Addison came walking into the hospital, and decided it was best to let the cat out of the bag.

She was his wife. He was married and not some swinging bachelor.

She had ruined his perfect little life with his intern in one fell swoop. But then she gave him the out. Told him that if he signed then so would she. And he had tried. He must have picked up that pen a hundred times but he just could not put it to paper.

He picked his wife. Even after Meredith had begged him not to and even after she had told him that she loved him enough to give him her last piece of cheesecake. After all that, he picked his wife.

Yet, he did not pick his wife, not really. He spent months smiling at Meredith. Laughing with her, smelling her hair, telling her that he was not over her, and that he remember every detail of their last kiss, and how it had seemed like habit. He picked Addison but he really stayed with Meredith. And it all culminated on the night of the prom.

Everything after that seemed to blur together. Addison, Mark, the divorce, Meredith, the Vet, all of it just seemed to blend together. None of it was separated in his mind but at the same time he felt like he was slowing down to watch his own life go up in flames around him. He was the onlooker of his own fatal car accident.

Prom had been nine months ago and yet, it still felt like yesterday. He had been so sure when he had followed Meredith into that exam room and now, he knew nothing. Because there was one thing he had never seen coming. Never thought it possible. Forgiveness.

Somewhere along the twisted road that was their relationship, he had managed to forgive Addie. Forgive her for Mark, for not trying some other forceful way to let him know how much trouble their marriage was in, for letting him come home one night to see that act of betrayal. Forgiveness for so much had come and gone and now all Derek was left with was honesty.

And one cold hard fact that he no longer could ignore; he and Meredith were not in love nor were they meant to be. They were too different in too many ways. They were at completely different places in their lives and careers. They had built their relationship on sex. Their relationship had been about hiding from others and not about being with one another. That was no relationship at all.

He realized that he and Meredith never had a real relationship, nine months too late. He realized too late the woman that really had his heart and he would have to live with that for the rest of his days. Days that were shaping up to be spent alone in a trailer that he was starting to see Addison's point on.

Derek did not want to hurt Meredith. It was one of the last things he wanted. How could he tell her that after everything, he did not love her? How was he going to tell her that he _never_ loved her? Was there any way to say that so it would not hurt as much? Would there be any way to easily tell her she was second best? That she was his rebound and revenge? That all in all if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn't?

Derek did not know those answers but he knew she deserved the truth. After all of this time she deserved his respect. Something he had never really given her before.

So he gathered all of his courage and knocked on her front door hoping he could get all of his jumbled thoughts into words. It was only best he did this in person. She opened later with a smile in her Dartmouth t-shirt.

"Hey!"

"Hey… Meredith, we need to talk."

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End.

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